


Of flying, of falling

by boxofwonder



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, so i just watched the second ep and somehow this happened, there's no sunshine tag?, with a mild dash of budding gay feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7443880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofwonder/pseuds/boxofwonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riko had been made to fly on the wings of her music, but struggling in the wake of her fall she finds that perhaps, she does not have to mend her wings alone.</p>
<p>(An even gayer take on Episodes 1 & 2 of Sunshine)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of flying, of falling

**Author's Note:**

> /returns from a writing slump with 3.5k worth of accidental sunshine meta
> 
> Hi y'all! I've never written for this fandom before, so my humble thanks for having me.

She was made for the stars.

As a child, Riko falls in love with them, and learns why they call unfulfilled love star-crossed as she grows up to realise there is a distance she is unable to breach, no matter how hard she stretches and strains. Her fingers never grasp the stars, never touch them.

But, she learns the feeling of piano keys beneath her fingertips, and that is enough. On the notes of music she flies, feels bright like the stars themselves. It is a carefree love she does not think about, a feeling she chases and chases and chases endlessly.

Flying, playing. It's all the same.

People shower her in praise, make her fly higher and higher and higher, so high she can almost taste the stardust on her tongue now.

Soaring on her wings, Riko is _made_ of stars.

 

\---

 

Her dress was too tight, the lights blinding. Hurting her eyes.

From the moment Riko had woken, unshed tears had been pounding behind her temple as a headache, but she'd pushed through. Expectations, expectations.

She was made for soaring, they said, brilliant, talented. So Riko smiled and put on her dress, closed her eyes and let make-up be brushed on her oversensitive skin, anxiety so deep in her bones it made her limbs tremble.

_A little stage fright is just natural._

Her fingers curled in her lap, fists so tight her nails dug into her palms painfully, and she nodded.

_It will all be gone once you're on stage._

A small part of her had believed it, before she took her seat. Blinked into the stage lights, a quiet sea of spectators stretching out to her side. Accepting the applause, and then quiet again. Unbearable quiet.

Her hands hovered over the keys which had carried Riko all her life, had made her believe in dazzling dreams and being bright, bright as the stars.

Maybe brighter.

Blinded, she had not realised she'd been flying too close to the sun.

The stage lights burned too hot, dripping wax from her wings.

Her fingers trembled, unable to move, unable to live up to the expectations weighing on her shoulders. And her wings unravelled, a mess of wax and feathers.

Like Icarus, she fell.

 

\---

 

Nothing had been the same ever since.

 

\---

 

The impending move was terrifying as it was exhilarating.

Even if it meant leaving everything behind, maybe the spark would return to her. Everything she had lost on that stage. The ability to close her eyes, be enveloped by her music. Grow and learn and fly higher. To smile and revel in the songs filling the air, coaxed by her fingers, flying over the keys with confidence, with joy.

Torn between fear and hope, Riko packed boxes and boxes with her belongings.

The night before the move, she lay awake in the darkness, face buried into her pillow. In the secrecy of the dark and her own mind, she could not outrun her biggest fear whispering inside her: that it wouldn't be enough.

What if Riko would not change? She had tried and tried, how would living in a small village by the sea help her learn to fly again? What if even a change of scenery, what if even _returning to the sea_ would not be enough?

Refusing to let the tears fall, she curled up as tightly as she could beneath her blanket, in a room that had already lost its resemblance of home.

What if she would never be enough again?

 

\---

 

The moment Riko sees the beach, something tight-wound and complicated in her comes loose.

She stares, entranced, and listens to the waves.

_The sound of the ocean_ , she thinks, dazzled, enchanted. She had been right. _This is my answer._

The melodic rush of the waves, the peace that settles in her bones. There's a gaping hole inside her where _home_ should be, but the ocean rushes into her heart through the cracks her fall had left in it, fills it.

The air tastes like salt and her fingers are itching, itching, itching.

Riko will write her song, she can feel it.

 

\---

 

The first day, she comes to the ocean and takes off her shoes and socks, burying her toes in the sand.

She closes her eyes, trying to let the sound of the waves and the wind in her hair do their healing, fill her entirely. _Sing_ to her.

The second day, she wades into the water knee-deep, shivering at its cold.

No, this is not enough.

The peace she had felt seeing the ocean when she arrived had vanished, replaced by restlessness. For that moment Riko had been _certain_ she could change, would change. That her worries were futile, that the tide would pull and tug at her until she became _more_ again, until she felt _whole_ again.

But nothing is happening, not anymore.

No, this is asking for desperate measures.

The next day, Riko returns with her swimsuit, unable to anticipate how much her life would change when she takes a deep breath and slips off her school uniform.

 

\---

 

Takami Chika bursts into her life with the force of a hurricane, and the _noise_ of one too.

One second, Riko braced herself for the cold water, bare feet sprinting over cool wood. The next, a pair of arms wrap around her like a trap, hysterical screaming of death and doom filling the air more noisily than the screaming sea gulls.

Her first instinct is to struggle, because Riko _needs_ to do this, and -

She falls again, not on her own, and it leaves her soaking wet and shivering on the beach with a strange girl her age wrapping her in fuzzy towels.

Honestly, in retrospect Riko isn't sure why she is so honest, why she tells that girl about the ocean song thrumming in her fingertips and waiting, yearning to be written.

Perhaps it is because Riko feels so incredibly cold, not just from the wind and the water, but deeper down, where no warmth could reach because she'd fallen from the sun.

And this girl – she seems warm, from the colour of her hair to the curve of her lips and the look in her eyes. Framed by light, she is warmth personified. Welcoming and kind and noisy and _funny._ Before Riko knows it, she is giggling and listening and drawn into her pace.

There's barely time to mourn another chance missed to hear the song she needed to hear, not with the way this girl speaks so highly, so passionately of idols. Of being ordinary and yearning to do more, love something so much you would devote everything to it.

_Don't be foolish,_ Riko wants to tell her. _Do you know how much it hurts, to love something so much, to have nothing else, and to lose it?_

But she can't bring it over herself to diminish the passion and joy in the strange girl's eyes. Once, Riko had been the same, and she knew how all-encompassing this kind of happiness and excitement could be.

“I want to shine, too!” the girl says, and all Riko can think is: _you're so radiant already._

But she doesn't voice it, only smiles, carries the passion of that speech in her heart. Tucks it into her palm in hopes she could carry it with her, and it would sprinkle her fingers and finally break the walls separating her from music, from the piano keys, from her _home._

She had lost Tokyo and her school, but music had always been her home, and she missed it so dearly. More than the bustle of Tokyo and the familiar hallways of her school, goodness, all the familiar faces she had been forced to leave behind – more than she would miss the familiar way Otonokizaka's school uniform hugged her when she would put on a new one tomorrow. More than anything, Riko missed the home that music had been to her.

When she hears Chika's name for the first time, a part of her is relieved to know her in the same grade – but a part of her is terrified, afraid to be burned by her light. To get too close. Not to be enough.

To be even less next too someone who was so _much._

So she can't tell her, just yet – that they'll attend the same school. That they might be in the same class.

But what are the odds, right?

 

\---

 

She can't bear touching her piano, not when it feels so hollow, so redundant. She can't bear it still.

Once, every melody had filled her. Once, she had not needed sleep to dream, because all her dreams had been painted in the air by her music.

Riko pulls the blanket over her ears and keeps her tears a secret between the pillow and her.

 

\---

 

Her first day at school feels a little like going on stage had made her feel, before the fall. Jittery, nervous, worried, but a part of her knows she will be okay nonetheless. Introducing herself comes more easily to her than she had expected, and she's almost a little excited.

But then, a familiar ginger girl raises from her seat, eyes _overflowing_ with joy, with wonder. Like Riko's mere existence was enough to make her believe in miracles.

Chika ignores the class, the teacher, everything as she jumps forwards with glowing cheeks, hand extended like she wants to whisk Riko away, teach her how to be this way, how to feel warm, how to -

Immediately, Riko knows she can't be what Chika expects her to be.

Not anymore, not when she is still trying to mend her wings, to learn how to _fly_ again.

So she bows deeply, apologetic. “I'm sorry.”

 

\---

 

Those three words become her mantra.

The passion Riko had admired so much that day on the beach becomes the bane of her existence as Chika makes it her goal to recruit Riko for her cause to be an idol with her.

Honestly, Riko had been worried she would be lonely at her new school, unable to make any friends. It wasn't like she had a best friend, a close friend at Otonokizaka High, but she had a pleasant if a little superficial relationship with most of the girls around her. And that had been enough, to chatter and share food and gossip and laugh together.

Now, Riko _wished_ for some calm, instead of being trailed by Chika every waking minute.

Perhaps, _perhaps_ a small part of her even enjoys to be wooed like that, relentless, like she is worth overcoming every new rejection.

But then Riko remembers why it is that Chika wants her to become an idol – for composing music, and honestly, she had not even managed to write the song she needed, the one that would break her free.

Riko could not _be_ what Chika wanted her to, no matter how much Chika's eyes glowed, how hard it was to see the hope wither in them just a little each time more.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

She was. Riko really was.

 

\---

 

_Of course_ Chika finds her at the beach, too.

The second her voice rings, weariness floods Riko with her sigh. How much longer would this keep up?

But … something is different. Chika is more quiet, and careful. Not mentioning the idols and only asking for the ocean song, still the only person to know of it. To be interested in whether it would ever bear fruit or not.

Bathed in the light of the sinking sun once more, Chika looks warm and kind again, no trace of the wildfire Riko felt she would burn her hands on if she got too close.

Even when she brings up idols again, their songs, Riko does not recoil as she had the past days. Something inside her feels calm, too.   
Perhaps it's the sound of the waves lapping at the beach, so close. So close, and yet, Riko felt deaf to their melody.

She is not certain why exactly she confesses her struggles to Chika – maybe to finally make her see that her energy is wasted on trying to coax Riko for her skills, skills that are redundant when she cannot even touch a piano anymore. That there is nothing to be done about it, because Riko has tried everything, given up so much to come here, and for what?

To stay star-crossed and doomed and torn apart from the inside out because she loved playing the piano so much, more than anything, but it feels so empty still.

Change hasn't come to her, no matter how much she willed it, _needed_ it. And maybe it never would. Leave her stuck like this forever, and Riko can feel the sadness unfurl in her with all its might and force as she stretches her fingers towards a horizon she won't be able to reach, an ocean she cannot _hear_ -

And then, Chika grasps her hands, makes Riko look to _her_ instead of the sea and for a moment, Riko is knocked breathless because it feels like the girl before her is as ferocious as the sea itself, powerful and relentless in her passion. Her fingers are warm and soft and _gentle_ as they wrap around Riko's hands, and a part of her wants Chika to hold on forever, not to give up on her. To believe she could do this, even after all Riko had told her.

“Change will come,” Chika says, so easily, and Riko doesn't believe her. She can't.

But a part of her, a tiny part, a hopeful part relishing in the warmth of Chika's touch – that foolish part believes her anyways. And it's scary, how simply, how fast Chika had gotten under her skin.

Riko won't be able to be an idol with her, to throw herself into something else and abandon the piano just like that – as if a little frustration could turn her away from what she loved the most, no matter how deep and hurtful that frustration is.

But Chika holds on, just like that foolish part of Riko wished – she holds on and she smiles in a way so dazzling, so true, that Riko wonders why Chika would yearn to be an idol for the sake of being _more_ when she already was _so much._ Too much.

Such a strange girl.

 

\---

 

Riko hides her smile in her pillow that night, heart pounding with the simplest happiness.

Perhaps Chika did not only care for her because of her dreams to form an idol group, perhaps she cared for _Riko_ herself.

Even when she pressed both her hands over her lips, her smile can't be willed away.

 

\---

 

She counts the days until they will go scuba diving.

 

\---

 

Her hope crashes fast, cruelly so.

Chika and her friend You take Riko _into_ the ocean, with the right gear. But even surrounded by water, floating in it, she can't hear anything.

It is in the wake of that bitterness that she follows Chika and You once more, into a patch of light, into a place of magic, into the heart of the song she has been searching so desperately.

In the wake of exhilaration, of joy, of relief, something between the three of them grows, made powerful by how enchanted they all were. A shared little dream.

So Riko feels like she owes it to the two of them – to write them their songs.

No strings attached, no time wasted on dancing or singing, on being _dazzling_. Attempting to be.

An exchange – for the hope given back to her, songs from the bottom of her heart.

That would have to be enough, even for Chika.

 

\---

 

Of course Chika didn't have the foresight to prepare lyrics, during all the time she had run after Riko. Of course.

 

\---

 

For all the whacky mishaps they have to navigate past to get to writing, once more, Riko finds herself dragged into Chika's pace. Something about Chika simply demanded to follow the warmth burning inside her, the hope pushing her forward.

Somehow, in all this, Riko remembers what it was like to fly, to reach for the stars, to _feel_ like she could live among them even with her feet bound to the earth.

 

\---

 

That night, she lies awake once more, her mind buzzing with lyrics, with song. Her thoughts wander, to the way Chika's hand had felt in hers. To the way Chika's eyes had only lit up when she had thought of idols, how she had nobody to make her heart pound enough to put it into song.

Somehow, the thought sent Riko's heart jittering and her mind calming.

How odd.

Riko rolled onto her back, blinking. Waiting.

The urge had been there all day, and at last, she pulls out her phone and watches the performance Chika had gushed so much about, the one that had inspired her.

 

\---

 

It's only her in the quiet of her room, fingers brushing the keys like a shy greeting to a friend she had not seen way too long. Holding her breath wondering if they still fit, exhaling as she fell back into rhythm like there had never been a time apart.

The lines of a song filling her heart, dripping from her lips shy and soft and unheard.

Only when she opens her eyes, it is to Chika's glowing face and smile. A part of her is not surprised – a different part of her feels vulnerable and exposed and very, _very_ incredibly flustered.

Chika is right. _There_.

Right across the balcony. Only a street between them.

What are the odds of being in one class. What are the odds of being _neighbors._

It's like the universe has shoved the brightest, most dazzling person it could conjure right into Riko's orbit, no way to flee or hide.

Obviously, her first instinct is to deny everything. No, she'd not been singing or playing that song, no, she'd – not been thinking of what made Chika's heart pound -(Why was it suddenly so embarrassing to have thought of these things _so close_ to her? Had Chika been lying awake as well? What was she thinking of when she did? Only idols? Why did it _matter?_ )

But it is simple, really.

“I've been looking for the door of dreams,” Chika says, beaming. And her words undo Riko. Unravel what not even the ocean had managed to, dragging the fears to the surface only Riko knew, festering in her mind and heart and paralysing her fingers whenever she had tried to play.

The tangled, complicated cluster inside her had been loosened by the waves and the ocean, but Chika's gentle fingers were sifting through the threads of it, untangling them one by one. Freeing Riko.

And a part of her, the foolish part, the ever growing part which had trusted in Chika from the second Riko had peered into her eyes – that part desperately lunges these secrets into her waiting hands. Kind hands, warm hands.

The fear of never changing. The lack of joy in what she does – what she _used to love._

Chika smiles, unwavering, and in the wake of Riko's shameful revelation, offers her hand, and still – a place by her side, in the idol group that Riko just knows Chika will manage to pull together, burning so brightly and working as hard as she did.

But how could Riko take Chika's outstretched hand? She had nothing to offer but barely patched wings, wings she didn't trust to carry her. Riko had forgotten how to fly, had given up on reaching for the stars.

What was there other than to accept her place, small and stuck and unchanging on the ground?

But when Chika pushes past her balcony in a gesture so reckless and foolish and _true,_ Tatsumi-san becomes Chika-chan to Riko. Blows away the hopelessness with nothing but her voice carrying, her foolish belief, her unwavering passion.

With tears in her eyes, Riko reaches for her – and it feels like grasping for stars all over again. Good will, and longing, and yet, no way to reach them.

And what does it matter?

Riko should have known that everything matters to Chika, who climbs halfway over the balcony railing with her wet hair and burning eyes and a smile so wide, hand reaching, _reaching -_

Riko thought it wouldn't matter, but the second their fingers brush – such a small touch – that very second her skin prickles, her heart races. A smile takes over her face that makes her cheeks ache, and Chika smiles back just as wide, as bright.

A part of Riko - the ever-growing part, the hopeful and trusting part that is entirely gone for Chika - knows in a quiet corner of her heart that she will never let go of this precious friend grasping her hand, for as long as Chika would allow her to stay by her side.

The stars were right there now, so close – shimmering in Chika's eyes.

After all this time, Riko had grasped them.

And suddenly, everything felt possible.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> To be perfectly honest all I wanted was the grasping star metaphor and smooches and WHAT DID I GET?!  
> I'm sorta hoping inspiration will strike again the next weeks and allow me to sneak in some canon compliant smooches for this fic ... I can't make any promises though.


End file.
